One of the greatest debates in the history of martial arts is the question "Which is the best style of fighting?". Typically, martial artists around the world tend to consider that their respective style is the best. However, only recently, martial artists and fans could be wtiness of no-holds-barred competitions between martial artists from different styles of fighting (actually, such "no-rules" matches among different styles have been part of the history of martial arts, but just recently has been the public exposed massively to this kind of competitions through TV and the internet, and the records are available to everyone).
This kind of competitions provide a more or less neutral and empirical way to answer the question about which is the best style (actually, it only provides a partial answer: A style can be "the best" in one respect, but the worst in another. For example, spiritually aikido is a lot superior than kickboxing, which as such has not spiritual aspect at all. Other styles can be useful against weapons, but weak in hand-to-hand fighting, etc.). But at least such competitions provide an objective criterion to discuss technical efficacious on empirical basis.
One of these "no-rules" matches that I liked a lot (because it was instrumental in changing my mindset) was the one that faced classical Wing Chun stylist, Sifu Steve Falkner, against sambo and grappling specialist, Igor Zinoviev. The reason why I like this fight a lot is because it faces an exponent of a classical martial art (concretely, a respected style of Kung Fu, namely Wing Chun) and an expert in a contemporary martial sport like Sambo.
For people unfamiliar with Wing Chun, let's just say that was the first combative style learned and used by the great Bruce Lee (who trained directly with Grandmaster Yip Man for a few years). Wing Chun Kung Fu is short-range style of fighting, which stresses trapping and chain punching, with simultaneous attack and defense techniques, a whole theory of combat (e.g. about the center and central line) and sensitivity training (Chi sao = Sticky hands; Chi Gerk = Sticky Legs).
Without a doubt, Wing Chun is one of the best and more effective classical Kung Fu styles. When competently used, Wing Chun is a devastatinng fighting art which leaves little room for the opponent to do an effective defense. See for example:
Sifu Steve Falkner is a seasoned Wing Chun figther and teacher, who trained under Sifu Duncan Leung (one of the world's leading masters of Wing Chun). Contrary to other traditional martial artists, Sifu Falkner had the courage to enter a Mixed Martial Arts competition to test his skills.
As you can watch in the first video above, Falker lost the fight pretty easily. When I first wacthed that fight many years ago, I was very young and still a practitioner of traditional martial arts and my "mindset" was the same than other traditional martial artists, namely: my style (and myself) was virtually unbeatable (except by people who knows my style better than me) and I assumed that Falker will kick ass in the tournament. This is a WRONG mindset, which (as I've argued in another post) is very dangerous and can get you badly beaten.
Falkner's loss doesn't refute the proven effectiveness of Wing Chun, but it forces you to think about its limitations. Against a experience grappler, in the context of a mixed martial arts event, the chances of the Wing Chun figther tends to be small. It doesn't mean that the Wing Chucn figther cannot win, but it is more likely that he loss, specially if the fight goes to the ground (which is likely to be the case in a MMA fight). In other context, for example fighting in stairs, the Wing Chun guy perhaps would have the upper hand.
The point is that we need to be humble, open mind and self-critical in our way to knowledge, martial arts training being no exception.
For more information on Wing Chun history, theory and technique, see discussion in the book "Wing Chun Kung Fu" by Ip Chun (the son of Yip Man) and "Wing Chun Martial Arts" by the same author (see also "Wing Tsun Kuen" by Sifu and Grandmaster Leung Ting)
According to the research of the late ufologist and abductee Dr.Karla Turner, the abduction phenomenon, if true, has deep implications for our life. In one of her articles, Dr.Turner summarizes the main conclusions of the abduction phenomenon (two of them, emphasized in blue, is relevant to afterlife research, as I'll comment below):
If "abduction" reports can be believed--and there is no reason to doubt the honesty of the reporters--the abduction phenomenon includes the following details:
1) Aliens can alter our perception of our surroundings.
2) Aliens can control what we think we see. They can appear to us in any number of guises, and shapes.
3) Aliens can take us--our consciousness--out of our physical bodies, disable our control of our bodies, install one of their own entities, and use our bodies as vehicles for their own activities before returning our consciousness to our bodies.
4) Aliens can be present with us in an invisible state and can make themselves only partially visible.
5) Abductees receive marks on their bodies other than the well-known scoops and straight-line scars. These other marks include single punctures, multiple punctures, large bruises, three- and four-fingered claw marks, and triangles of every possible sort.
6) Females abductees often suffer serious gynecological problems after their alien encounters, and sometimes these problems lead to cysts, tumors, cancer of the breasts and uterus, and to hysterectomies.
7) Aliens take body fluids from our necks, spines, blood veins, joints such as knees and wrists, and other places. They also inject unknown fluids into various parts of our bodies.
8) A surprising number of abductees suffer from serious illnesses they didn't have before their encounters. These have led to surgery, debilitation, and even death from causes the doctors can't identify.
9) Some abductees experience a degeneration of their mental, social, and spiritual well-being. Excessive behavior frequently erupts, such as drug abuse, alcoholism, overeating, and promiscuity. Strange obsessions develop and cause the disruption of normal life and the destruction of personal relationships.
10) Aliens show a great interest in adult sexuality, child sexuality, and in inflicting physical pain on abductees.
11) Abductees recall being instructed and trained by aliens. This training may be in the form of verbal or telepathic lessons, slide shows, or actual hands-on instruction in the operation of alien technology.
12) Abductees report being taken to facilities in which they encounter not only aliens but also normal-looking humans, sometimes in military uniforms, working with the alien captors.
13) Abductees often encounter more than one sort of alien during an experience, not just the grays. Every possible combination of gray, reptoid, insectoid, blond, and widow's peak have been seen during single abductions, aboard the same craft or in the same facility.
14) Abductees--"virgin" cases--report being taken to underground facilities where they see grotesque hybrid creatures, nurseries of hybrid humanoid fetuses, and vats of colored liquid filled with parts of human bodies.
15) Abductees report seeing other humans in these facilities being drained of blood, being mutilated, flayed, and dismembered, and stacked, lifeless like cords of wood. Some abductees have been threatened that they, too, will end up in this condition if they don't co-operate with their alien captors.
16) Aliens come into homes and temorary remove young children, leaving their distraught parents paralyzed and helpless. In cases where a parent has been able to protest, the aliens insist that "The children belong to us."
17) Aliens have forced ther human abductees to have sexual intercourse with aliens and even with other abductees while groups of aliens observe these performances. In such encounters, the aliens have sometimes disguised themselves in order to gain the cooperation of the abductee, appearing in such forms as Jesus, the Pope, certain celebrities, and even the dead spouses of the abductees.
18) Aliens perform extremely painful experiments or procedures on abductees, saying that these acts are necessary but give no explanation why.....Painful genital and anal probes are performed, on children as well as adults.
19) Aliens make predictions of an imminent period of global chaos and destruction. They say that a certain number of humans...will be "rescued" from the planet in order to continue the species, either on another planet or back on earth after the destruction is over. Many abductees report they don't believe their alien captors and foresee instead a much more sinister use of the "rescued" humans.
"In every instance from this list, there are multiple reports from unrelated cases, confirming that such bizzarre details are not the product of a single deranged mind. These details are convincing evidence that, contrary to the claims of many UFO researchers, the abduction experience isn't limited to uniform pattern of events. This phenomenon simply can't be explained in terms of cross- breeding experiments or scientific research into the human physiology....... Before we allow ourselves to believe in the benevolence of the alien interaction , we should ask, do enlightened beings need to use the cover of night to perform good deeds? Do they need to paralyze us and render us helpless to resist? Do angels need to steal our fetuses? Do they need to manipulate our children's genitals and probe our rectums? Are fear, pain, and deception consistent with high spiritual motives?"
Jime's commentary
Dr.Tuner's conclusions, if correct, have a bunch of scientific, philosophical, religious and (above all) EXISTENTIAL implications, which shouldn't be bypassed by any human being, let alone by any truth-seeker. I'll comment about each point of Dr.Turner's view in future posts.
In this post, I'll like to comment briefly the points number 3 and 17, in which Dr.Tuner says that the evidence from alien abductions suggests that aliens can appear with the form of religious leaders (e.g. Jesus) and even dead spouses (and we can suppose that of other members of the family) of the abductees, or that they can take command of a person's consciousness and manipulate it at will (e.g. so-called "demonic" or "non-demonic" possesions?).
If it is true, then some putative "afterlife" apparitions are not from the afterlife at all. In this case, it would be literally an alien manipulation!.
In the same way in which most scientists are ignorant, and even hostile, to the evidence for the afterlife, I think that many afterlife researchers (and parapsychologists, for that matter) are very ignorant of the evidence from ufology. Some of them seem to think that ufology is a "pseudoscience" and that "no evidence at all" exists for UFOs, or (putautve) alien abductions. This causes a kind of lack of communication among scholars in different fields and therefore the best conclusions or speculations in one field cannot shed light on the other.
But note that if Dr.Turner is correct, then at least part of the abduction evidence is relevant for afterlife research, because a putative afterlife manifestation (apparitions of dead relatives or spouses) is actually (in some cases) accounted for by alien intervention, not by the afterlife hypothesis.
Moreover, if aliens can do such a thing, cannot they to produce (artificially) other manifestations suggestive of an afterlife? After all, if they can appear like Jesus... (I'm thinking in the Jesus "apparition" that Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, claimed to have experienced. Also, I'm thinking in contemporary mystical or paranormal sources of information and messages which, supposedly, come from Jesus himself... assuming for the argument's sake that these reports are veridical, which is not clear either).
Also, since aliens can take our consciousness, then it is not definitive that each case of mediumship evidence can be explained with the afterlife hypothesis alone. This suggestion would sound ridiculous to many hard-nosed spiritualists, but not to other truth seekers (specially the ones informed by ufology) who want to consider all the relevant hypotheses.
I think we have to be extremely careful here, avoiding to dismiss evidence from other fields which are relevant to own cherished beliefs.
As an reader and student of the ufological literature, I'm increasingly becoming convinced that something very interesting is happening in the best cases of UFOs. I have not clear if we're at presence of an "extraterrestial" manifestation, but the evidence is suggestive. Also, I think this phenomenon is strongly connected with religion.
I'm convinced that an inter-disciplinary approach to these questions (sound intellectual formation, including good understanding of natural and social science, philosophy, parapsychology, religion, theology, ufology, etc.) is absolutely necessary to have an all-around, objective and accurate picture of what the hell is happening in the best cases of ufology and, particularly, of the abduction phenomenon.
Just think about it and think hard about Dr.Tuner's points mentioned above.
I haven't watched this movie yet, but as you can watch in the trailer (and in the online commentaries about it) and in interviews with Rodrigo Cortes (the filmmaker), it is clear to me that movie presents a pseudoskeptical view of psychic phenomena.
It focuses on "paranormal frauds" which, as any serious researcher of parapsychology knows, do exists and have been motive of concern for seasoned parapsychologists for a long time (see for example, this article by George Hansen published in the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research).
In the this interview, the filmmaker Cortes comments "Something that I wanted to do through the film is try to explore the roots of belief, because everything has to do with beliefs. When I studied the side of the rationalists and the skeptics, and the side of the believers and so-called psychics, I found out that both of them, no matter what they claim to do, behave in a very similar way. They only accepted what confirmed their previous positions, and tended to reject everything that put them at risk."
Note that Cortes calls "rationalists" and "skeptics" what is more properly called PSEUDOSKEPTICS (=materialists and atheists who deny or debunk psychic phenomena because it doesn't fit in their naturalistic, anti-religious, anti-spiritual worldview), and "believers" and "psychics" as their opponents. Obviously, this is a wrong terminology, because the "rationalists" and "skeptics" tend to be pretty irrational in many instances (see Jime's Iron Law for evidence).
But Cortes, who's a intelligent man, realizes that bias exist in BOTH group (not only in the group of "believers"), and this speak well of Cortes' intelligence and objectivity. For example, in the same interview he says "Let me put it in a different way: If you believe in God, that's a belief. If you are an atheist, it's a belief too, because you cannot prove that God does not exist. It's something that you have to believe in, which is something that I found pretty fascinating about the character of Matheson. I would say that that's my way of behaving, too—it isn't receiving, it's not about denying. It's about questioning, and trying to understand."
Again, the above comments shows Cortes' intelligence, in contrast with some atheists and pseudoskeptics who try to mislead the public into the belief that atheism is simply "the lack of belief in God" (which actually conflates atheism with agnosticism). The actual definition of atheism, as a metaphysical position, is the belief that God doesn't not exist (more technically, it is the belief that the proposition "God exists" is false).
As philosopher of religion William Lane Craig explains
But Cortes's beliefs are clearly naturalistic. In another interview published in a Spanish magazine about paranormal topics, he comments "Nature cannot be trascended, everything has a place according to natural laws." (El Ojo Critico, Nº70, p. 28. Translation by me). Such naturalism obviously begs the question against theism and, by implication, against spiritual and supernatural (=beyond the physical or material nature) explanations of psychic phenomenon (which seem to be phenomena not connected with blind natural laws or purely mechanical forces but with intentional agents or free persons... therefore, only a personalistic worldview provides a proper framework to understand them as part of the fabric of reality. You cannot make sense of these phenomena in terms of blind and mechanical forces, and spontaneous and non-conscious natural laws of matter, and this is precisely why "naturalists" and materialists are committed debunkers of these phenomena. Even some professional parapsychologists, not trained in philosophy, fail to understand this point, believing naively that they're studying purely "natural" phenomena, when actually they're studying phenomena which imply essentially a personalistic worldview contrary to the essential impersonalism of scientific naturalism and materialism).
Parapsychology is NOT metaphysically neutral, because it studies phenomena which push the balance in favour of certain metaphysical doctrines and against others (i.e. scientific materialism). As philosopher Chris Carter comments "As I discuss in my book, this militant opposition is something peculiar to Western societies, and it is basically due to the historical conflict in the West between secular and religious members of society... It is essential to realize that most of the deniers and phony-skeptics are militant atheists and secular humanists. For instance, the world's leading "skeptical" organization, The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) was founded in 1976 by atheist philosopher Paul Kurtz, at a meeting of the American Humanist Association. For various reasons, these people have an ideological agenda which is anti-religious and anti-superstitious. One of the main pillars of their opposition to religion and superstition is the doctrine of materialism: that is, the doctrine that all events have a physical cause, and that the brain therefore produces the mind. If they conceded the existence of psychic abilities such as telepathy, and of the Near Death Experience as a genuine separation of mind from body, then this pillar of their opposition to religion would crumble. Hence, their dogmatic denial of the evidence that proves materialism false"
If parapsychology were metaphysically neutral, then naturalists would have no problem with parapsychology because, after all, parapsychologists are not defending any religion at all. But they're discovering phenomena which fit a personalistic worldview like THEISM and don't fit the impersonalistic worldview of scientific naturalism and materialism. This is the key of the debate.
As atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel comments "I believe that this is one manifestation of a fear of religion which has large and often pernicious consequences for modern intellectual life.
In speaking of the fear of religion, I don’t mean to refer to the entirely reasonable hostility toward certain established religions and religious institutions, in virtue of their objectionable moral doctrines, social policies, and political influence. Nor am I referring to the association of many religious beliefs with superstition and the acceptance of evident empirical falsehoods. I am talking about something much deeper—namely, the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and wellinformed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.
My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and that it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time. One of the tendencies it supports is the ludicrous overuse of evolutionary biology to explain everything about life, including everything about the human mind. Darwin enabled modern secular culture to heave a great collective sigh of relief, by apparently providing a way to eliminate purpose, meaning, and design as fundamental features of the world"
It is the fear and hostility to THEISM (i.e. to a worldview which, beyond the purely physical, non-teleological, impersonalistic and blind natural world, poses a more basic spiritual world grounded in a free, conscious, super-powerful, intentional and ultimately perfect person called GOD) which is the core of naturalism, materialism and pseudoskepticism. (Again, even parapsychologists have not recognized this, because they also conflate "theism" with "religion").
Note that even quantum mechanics, which in some interpretations postulates consciousness as basic and causally important to physical reality, doesn't refute the above philosophical consideration, because a consciousness which is free, ontologically independent of nature and hence undetermined by natural laws is precisely what God (and its spiritual creations = spirits) are supposed to be. For this reason, atheist philosopher Quentin Smith and agnostic quantum physicist Euan Squires, have suggested that the standard dualistic interpretation of quantum mechanics provides a good SCIENTIFIC argument for God's existence (and hence, for theism).
People watching movies like that will tend to think that "the paranormal" is limited to spoon-benders and other "psychics", when actually the best evidence for most psi phenomena is found in laboratory experiments with normal subjects (see Dean Radin's books for discussion of the experimental evidence) in which the evidence for psi is discoveried after careful statatistical analysis.
As a hard-core fan of movies, I'm sure that I'll enjoy this movie too (it has great actors there), but I strongly disagree with the general approach and misleading impression that it will give to the public.
The Kalam Cosmological Argument (KCA) is the most debated contemporary argument for God's existence. This argument was instrumental in my rational converstion to theism. After two years of reading carefully the technical literature about it, the youtube videos and debates related to this argument, and thinking for myself my own objections, I became convinced that this argument is sound (i.e. its premises are more plausibly true and reasonable than its negations, and are taken for granted as true by most people in any other context than debates about God, I mean, the premises of the KCA are doubted or negated by atheists ONLY in order to deny or doubt the theologically charged conclusion of the argument. But the same atheists accept the truth of these premises in other scientific or non-scientific contexts).
In the technical literature, I've positively confirmed that Craig has responded to and refuted convincently virtually each possible and imaginable objection against this argument (Craig has even raised himself some objections of his own, that he has refuted too. Also he has refuted objections that I've posed myself in my imagination while reading or hearing his discussion of the argument).
It was a surprise to me to find the above lecture about 10 objections to the Kalam that I haven't read in the technical literature nor thought about by myself. The reason, as Craig says, is that he has responded only to the RATIONAL objections to the KCA (i.e. objections which are raised by rational people and deep thinkers and truth-seekers), not to the irrational ones.
But youtube is full of hard-core atheists affected by Jime's Iron Law. As consequence, the these people will pose objections to the KCA which not rational people would even think about, because such objections are obviously stupid and ridiculous.
In fact, I confess (with a certain embarrasment) that as the discover of Jime's Iron Law, I should have anticipated at least some of these ridiculous objections, since you cannot expect otherwise from hard-core youtube atheistic irrationalists, morons and pseudo-intellectuals. My fault!
Even though I consider a wasting of time to refute these ridiculous objections, Craig has decided to address them in a full lecture, because after all youtube is one (perhaps the most) visited website on the internet, and some people could get fooled or misguided if they find the objections of atheistic irrationalists without a proper reply. So, enjoy the lecture (and think carefully about Jime's Iron Law and atheists affected by it).
Finally, I strongly suggest you to get a copy of Craig's seminal book "The Kalam Cosmological Argument", and think hard, objectively and carefully about it:
In a previous post, I published a review by skeptic Gerald Woerlee of Chris Carter's book Science and Near-Death Experience, with Carter's reply. Now, Woerlee has published another Amazon review, this time of Carter's first book titled Science and Psychic Phenomena (previously published as Parapsychology and the Skeptics). I'll publish this review, with Carter's reply. Draw your own conclusions (but read the book first!).
Gerald Woerlee's review
I purchased this book with my usual open mind when I read of this work being a definitive end to all discussion of the reality of the paranormal / psychic phenomena. Unfortunately I received a rude shock upon reading the blurb on the back cover....
"Carter reveals how the doctrine of materialism - in which nothing matters but matter - has become an infallible article of faith for many scientists and philosophers, much like the convictions of religious fundamentalists. Consequently, the possibility of psychic abilities cannot be tolerated because their existence would refute materialism and contradict a deeply ingrained ideology. By outlining the origin of this passionate debate, Carter calls on all open-minded individuals to disregard the church of skepticism...."
I began to suspect the worst. Was this book no more than a heated polemic by a true member of the congregation of the Church of Paranormalia? The foreword written by Rupert Sheldrake did little to reassure me, for here I read much the same:
"From my own experience talking to scientists and giving seminars in scientific institutions, dogmatic skeptics are a minority within the scientific community. Most scientists are curious and open-minded, if only because they themselves or people they know well have had experiences that suggest the reality of psi phenomena. Nevertheless, almost all scientists are aware of the taboo, and the open-minded tend to keep their interests private, fearing scorn or ridicule if they discuss them openly with their colleagues." (Page xii)
This opinion was supported by the statistics presented on pages 131-132 where two surveys of 500 to 100 scientists during the 1970's revealed that the majority (56-67%) believed ESP to be an established fact or likely probability. This type of statistic is similar to stating that one hundred thousand lemmings can't be wrong. However, undeterred by this foolishness, I continued bravely in the true spirit of skepticism as defined by Chris Carter on page 43:
"Many writers have pointed out that true skepticism involves the practice of doubt, not of simple denial,..."
I consider myself a true skeptic, even though many label me a pseudoskeptic - whatever that may be. Chris Carter's discussions of the various experiments and discussions employed to convince the reader of the reality of the phenomena discussed reminded me strongly of my own beliefs in the reality of these phenomena until I passed 40 years of age. A referral back to a previous mindset. Fascinating to read, and mull over how I too once thought in a similar manner, spending many hours working out possible drug combinations to pharmacologically enhance paranormal perceptive abilities.
Carter spares no effort to convince the reader of the reality of these phenomena. Throughout the book he derides "establishment" science, and the "fear" most scientists seem to have to express their true belief in psychic phenomena. Such statements seem to be standard in this type of work, and remind me strongly of similar even more rabid statements in "The Spiritual Brain", a book written by Mario Beauregard and Denyse O'Leary. This sort of polemic does nothing to advance the cause of Chris Carter. Instead, such statements generally repel the true skeptic and other open-minded readers, by informing them of the equally intransigent attitudes of the "Church of Paranormalia".
The book deviates from its course of attempting to convince readers of the reality of psychic phenomena, by dragging in some of the other "usual suspects" as a sort of smokescreen to hide the poverty of convincing material: the mystery of consciousness, and quantum mechanics. My only thought on reading this was, "Oh dear....":
1. Consciousness is not understood. True. But that does not mean it is something mysterious and located outside the body. It is simply not understood as yet. To explain it otherwise is to use the tired old "God of the gaps" explanation as first formulated by the evangelist Henry Drummond during 1904, and dismissed by him as a sad form of reasoning.
2. Quantum mechanics is a possible mechanism proposed for paranormal perception, and as such is irrelevant in a book whose purpose is to demonstrate the reality of these phenomena.
Then we come to the main problem of this book. On pages 111 and 133 Chris Carter states that parapsychological research is underfunded. Again the usual suspects are trotted out, especially on page 133, where we read:
"Psychologist Sybo Schouten compared the funding directed toward parapsychology over the one hundred years spanning 1882 to 1982 and found that it was approximately equal to the expenditures of two months of conventional psychological research in the United States in 1983."
The implication is evident. Parapsychology is underfunded, which is why no unequivocal and conclusive proof has been provided sufficient to convince even skeptics. I find this very curious. Recent polls reveal that about 50% people in modern Western countries believe in paranormal phenomena, and about 10-15% of all people in modern Western countries claim to have experienced paranormal perceptions. This means paranormal perceptions such as:
are very common indeed. This was also known by the founders of the British Society for Psychical Research in 1882, and the founders of the similar American Society for Psychical Research in 1885. The founders of these societies believed that because these phenomena and experiences were so common, that scientific proof of the reality of these phenomena was a mere formality and rapidly achieved. But what is the current situation 130 years later, after vast effort by capable scientists, and rigorously controlled studies? The reality of paranormal phenomena is still doubtful and unproven. Expensive funding is not needed to prove the reality of something as ostensibly common as paranormal sensory abilities. The reality of these sensory abilities should be clearly evident after 130 years. This is why hard-headed financers of such research understandably say the following; "130 years of research has failed to convincingly demonstrate the reality of what you claim are really very common sensory abilities. This means a number of things:
- paranormal sensory abilities and psychic phenomena do not exist, - people have been using the wrong testing procedures for 130 years, - these sensory abilities and phenomena are very different to what people have defined and believe them to be."
This is why the funding of parapsychological research is drying up. This is why chairs of parapsychology are disappearing from universities all over the world. And this book by Chris Carter does nothing to dispel these facts.
Furthermore, as I pointed out in a book, "Mortal Minds" during 2003, the world about us provides abundant proof of the absence of paranormal perceptions. Many hundreds or even thousands of books teach people how to develop their supposedly dormant paranormal senses. Equally many people and organizations offer courses teaching people to develop these same supposedly dormant paranormal senses. So many people believe paranormal senses can be developed. According to the World Health Organization, there are about 314 million people alive on this world with a visual impairment, of which 45 million are totally blind (WHO statistics). According to the World Health Organization statistics, there are about 278 million people alive on this world with moderate to profound hearing loss in both ears (WHO statistics). Yet blind and deaf people are not offered courses to train any dormant paranormal sensory abilities. Nor do blind and deaf people spontaneously develop any dormant paranormal sensory abilities. So ages-old common knowledge teaches us that deaf and blind people live in a dark and silent world. Their information about this world, and their perceptions of this world, are derived only from their remaining physical senses, modified by their memories of the world as they experienced it when they still possessed the ability to see and hear. The blind and the deaf are living proof that people possess no paranormal sensory abilities, and this knowledge supplements the lack of conclusive proof of more than 120 years of research into paranormal sensory abilities. Blind and deaf people prove popular belief in paranormal abilities to be no more than a deeply rooted ancient delusion!
True, studies revealing the absence of "something", do not mean that "something" is absent. Nonetheless, such studies do reveal that if such perceptive abilities do exist, they function entirely differently than defined. This means that paranormal abilities such as telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, etc.: if they exist, definitely do not possess the properties defined by parapsychology as it now exists. So if there is anything at all, then it is a form of anomalous perception, and definitely part of the normal perceptive abilities of humans and the laws of statistics and chance. Such is the attitude of the founders of chairs of "anomalous psychology", a way of looking at these poorly understood apparent aberrations in normal physical perceptive abilities.
It would have been better had Carter simply acknowledged these basic facts. "Science and Psychic Phenomena" would then have made a true contribution to the study of such fascinating poorly understood possible perceptive anomalies. Ultimately, I can only concur with Shaun Mason, one of the 2009 reviewers of the first edition of this book:
"The day that ESP is proven to exist under scientific conditions with no chicanery, parlor tricks, or stage magic, you won't have to read about it in obfuscated rhetoric by pseudoscientists like this, it will be unavoidable front-page news. Despite all the claims in this book, that day has not arrived. Save your money."
Chris Carter's reply
I will start with the quote with which Gerry ends his review of my book:
"The day that ESP is proven to exist under scientific conditions with no chicanery, parlor tricks, or stage magic, you won't have to read about it in obfuscated rhetoric by pseudoscientists like this, it will be unavoidable front-page news. Despite all the claims in this book, that day has not arrived. Save your money."
This is an obviously naïve view of the way that science - or any human enterprise for that matter - actually works. Here is an excerpt from my book that illustrates the issue involved here:
"As our theories change, what was once considered extraordinary can become quite ordinary-as, for instance, has happened with the acceptance of meteorites, continental drift, and quantum mechanics. What makes the claims of the psi researchers so extraordinary to the skeptics is the supposed inconsistency of psi with all of modern science. This misconception, probably more than any other factor, explains the continuing refusal of the skeptics to accept the best of the latest evidence as conclusive, even when they have run out of counterexplanations.
It also explains why the controversy has continued for as long as it has. In any other field, the debate would have ended long ago. Back in 1951, the psychologist Donald Hebb wrote:
`Why do we not accept ESP as a psychological fact? Rhine has offered enough evidence to have convinced us on almost any other issue. . . . Personally, I do not accept ESP for a moment, because it does not make sense. My external criteria, both of physics and of physiology, say that ESP is not a fact despite the behavioral evidence that has 186 Would the Existence of Psi Contradict Established Science? been reported. I cannot see what other basis my colleagues have for rejecting it . . . Rhine may still turn out to be right, improbable as I think that is, and my own rejection of his view is-in the literal sense-prejudice.'
Four years later, in 1955, George Price wrote that `Believers in psychic phenomena . . . appear to have won a decisive victory and virtually silenced opposition. . . . This victory is the result of careful experimentation and intelligent argumentation. Dozens of experimenters have obtained positive results in ESP experiments, and the mathematical procedures have been approved by leading statisticians.'
Yet later in the same article, after writing that "ESP is incompatible with current scientific theory, he offers his conclusion:
`My opinion concerning the findings of the parapsychologists is that many of them are dependent on clerical and statistical errors and unintentional use of sensory cues, and that all extrachance results not so explicable are dependent on deliberate fraud or mildly abnormal mental conditions.'
Here we have two skeptics in effect admitting that if this were any other field of inquiry - that is, one with results less threatening to a worldview based on seventeenth-century science - then the experimental data would have carried the day by 1950." [Carter, p. 186]
Gerry delivers what he plainly considers to be a coup de grace:
"Furthermore, as I pointed out in a book, "Mortal Minds" during 2003, the world about us provides abundant proof of the absence of paranormal perceptions. Many hundreds or even thousands of books teach people how to develop their supposedly dormant paranormal senses. Equally many people and organizations offer courses teaching people to develop these same supposedly dormant paranormal senses. So many people believe paranormal senses can be developed. According to the World Health Organization, there are about 314 million people alive on this world with a visual impairment, of which 45 million are totally blind (WHO statistics). According to the World Health Organization statistics, there are about 278 million people alive on this world with moderate to profound hearing loss in both ears (WHO statistics). Yet blind and deaf people are not offered courses to train any dormant paranormal sensory abilities. Nor do blind and deaf people spontaneously develop any dormant paranormal sensory abilities. So ages-old common knowledge teaches us that deaf and blind people live in a dark and silent world. Their information about this world, and their perceptions of this world, are derived only from their remaining physical senses, modified by their memories of the world as they experienced it when they still possessed the ability to see and hear. The blind and the deaf are living proof that people possess no paranormal sensory abilities, and this knowledge supplements the lack of conclusive proof of more than 120 years of research into paranormal sensory abilities. Blind and deaf people prove popular belief in paranormal abilities to be no more than a deeply rooted ancient delusion!"
Gerry wrote above that "many people believe paranormal senses can be developed." What many people believe is in this context completely irrelevant. Whether or not psi abilities are capable of being developed is an empirical matter, and thus can only be determined by controlled observation and experiment.
Regardless, he goes on to conclude that "The blind and the deaf are living proof that people possess no paranormal sensory abilities." But again, whether or not the blind and deaf have greater telepathic or clairvoyant abilities than the unimpaired is an empirical question, and thus cannot be settled with a priori arguments. At the present time no research has been conducted into this matter, and so the question remains unanswered.
As Gerry pointed out, parapsychology is a poorly funded branch of science, and if it were not for the campaigns of ridicule carried out by "skeptical" materialist organizations such as CSI/CSICOP, then funding would be available to answer questions such as this.
For the record I should reveal that "Gerry" is in fact Gerald Woerlee, a fanatical materialist and militant atheist, author of the book The Unholy Legacy of Abraham.
Why are there so many "skeptics" such as Gerald Woerlee eager to debunk not just reports of psychic phenomena, but also phenomena such as the near death experience?
As I discuss in my book, this militant opposition is something peculiar to Western societies, and it is basically due to the historical conflict in the West between secular and religious members of society.
Genuine skepticism plays an important role in science; but genuine skepticism involves the suspension of belief, not the refusal of belief. So, individuals such as Woerlee are not genuine skeptics, but rather pseudo-skeptics strenuously defending the theory of materialism from the data which refute it. As Karl Popper stressed, science progresses with the refutation of theories; it follows from this that defending a theory by strenuously denying the data which refute it must be one of the defining characteristics of pseudo-science.
Essentially, this debate is not primarily about evidence. Rather, the debunkers and deniers are defending an out-moded world view in which psychic phenomena and out-of-body experiences are simply not allowed to exist. It is essential to realize that most of the deniers and phony-skeptics are militant atheists and secular humanists. For instance, the world's leading "skeptical" organization, The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) was founded in 1976 by atheist philosopher Paul Kurtz, at a meeting of the American Humanist Association. For various reasons, these people have an ideological agenda which is anti-religious and anti-superstitious. One of the main pillars of their opposition to religion and superstition is the doctrine of materialism: that is, the doctrine that all events have a physical cause, and that the brain therefore produces the mind. If they conceded the existence of psychic abilities such as telepathy, and of the Near Death Experience as a genuine separation of mind from body, then this pillar of their opposition to religion would crumble. Hence, their dogmatic denial of the evidence that proves materialism false.
The words of C. D. Broad, the Cambridge philosopher of science, are appropriate here. In his 1962 "Lectures in Psychical Research," Broad wrote: "Anyone who at the present day expresses confident opinions, whether positive or negative, on ostensibly paranormal phenomena, without making himself thoroughly acquainted with the main methods and results of the careful and long-continued work may be dismissed without further ceremony as a conceited ignoramus."
And it should be noted that Woerlee and I have tangled before. In fact, his "review" of my book is obviously a petty attempt at revenge. I embarrassed him recently in The Journal of Near Death Studies, Fall 2011 issue 30(1), in which he tried and failed to discredit the famous Pam Reynolds near death experience.
Chris Carter
Sources
Hebb, D. O. "The Role of Neurological Ideas in Psychology." Journal of Personality 20 (1951): 39-55.
Price, George R. "Science and the Supernatural." Science 122, no. 3165 (1955): 359-67.
Jime's additions:
-Insider's confession by a former skeptic about organized skepticism.
-My posts on Jime's Iron Law about the cognitive faculties of hard-core atheistic materialists.
You have to keep in mind that a consequence of Jime's Iron Law is the hard-core atheist's simplistic and illogical mindset and full unability to grasp complicated arguments (specially if they're posed against atheism or materialism). As an example of this, Woerlee misrepresents one of Carter's arguments for consciousness being (ontologically) independent of the brain as an "God of the gaps" argument.
According to Woerlee's misinterpretation of Carter's case: "Consciousness is not understood. True. But that does not mean it is something mysterious and located outside the body. It is simply not understood as yet. To explain it otherwise is to use the tired old "God of the gaps" explanation as first formulated by the evangelist Henry Drummond during 1904, and dismissed by him as a sad form of reasoning."
If you have read carefully Carter's book, you know that nowhere Carter is arguing FROM the lack of understanding of consciousness TO the conclusion that consciousness is "mysterious" or "located outside of the body". It would be a massively stupid argument that not intelligent person (let alone, a Oxford-trained philosopher like Carter) would defend. (Note: Richard Dawkins is a trained scientist from Oxford, but he has defended massively stupid arguments... see here for evidence).
On the contrary, Carter is arguing from what IS POSITIVELY KNOWN about consciousness (from quantum mechanics, parapsychology, near-death experiences, etc.) to the conclusion that consciousness is ontologically independent of the brain. Carter is not appealing to the lack of understanding of consciousness, but to POSITIVE evidence and data about the nature and functioning of consciousness in order to show that that positive evidence is, overall, best explained by the transmission hypothesis than by the productive (materialistic) one. (Note that no "gaps" is part of Carter's argumentation, therefore, not "God of the gaps" exists in his case).
The God of the gaps argument has the following logical structure: Science lacks understanding of X, therefore God explains X. No intelligent and sophisticated theist in the history of thought has been so stupid as to defend an argument like that. But hard-core atheists, intellectually incapable of subtle thinking and logic argumentation, will blindly repeat again and again the "God of the Gaps" objection against any argument for the existence of God (and, for that matter, for any argument against materialism, including arguments for the paranormal and the afterlife, as Woerlee did).
As example, just watch this question posed by a member of the audience (and the reply by theistic philosopher William Lane Craig) about the "God of the gaps" argument in an academic debate about the existence of God a few years ago:
Don't try to explain this to a hard-core atheistic materialist, because Jime's Iron Law predicts that they won't get it.
For five years a group of mediums and scientists witnessed more phenomena than in any other experiment in the history of the paranormal, including: recorded conversations with the dead, written messages on sealed film, video of spirit faces and even spirit forms materializing.
After his debate with William Lane Craig, atheist Lawrence Krauss became in some online circles known as 2+2=5 atheist genius. But after the publication of his book "A Universe from Nothing", some prefer call Krauss "Mr.Nothing = Unstable Something", because Krauss main thesis is that the universe came from some basic or fundamental something (a "something" that Krauss, contrary to the common and philosophical use of the words, prefers to call "nothing").
I've explained in other posts that the atheist conflation of "something" with "nothing" (which by no means is exclusive of Krauss, and can be seen also in many atheist "intellectuals" like Richard Dawkins, John Loftus, Stephen Hawking, Victor Stenger and many others) is a symptom and consequence of a empircal law wich holds for most hard-core atheists and that I've called Jime's Iron Law.
Fortunatley, not all atheists are affected by my law, that is, some of them seem to have escaped from it, at least regarding its most dramatic manifestations. Some of them seem to be completely unaffected by the law in question (see for example, atheist philosopher Daniel Came, who clearly realizes the fallacies and imbecilities of contemporary atheism, specially the Dawkins' branch).
An example is another atheist who seems to be free from the constraints imposed by Jime's Iron Law is atheist biologist and philosopher Maximo Pligiucci. Even though not a very sophisticated philosopher, he's at least CONSISTENT with his worldview (see evidence here) and is not intellectually afraid of holding the implications of his beliefs.
In his blog, Pigliucci correctly castigates the intellectual imbecility of Krauss as shown in the latter's lastest book on "nothing". Pigliucci realizes the conflation of "somehting with nothing" is seen commonly in the works of contemporary physicists: "I don’t know what’s the matter with physicists these days. It used to be that they were an intellectually sophisticated bunch, with the likes of Einstein and Bohr doing not only brilliant scientific research, but also interested, respectful of, and conversant in other branches of knowledge, particularly philosophy. These days it is much more likely to encounter physicists like Steven Weinberg or Stephen Hawking, who merrily go about dismissing philosophy for the wrong reasons, and quite obviously out of a combination of profound ignorance and hubris (the two often go together, as I’m sure Plato would happily point out). The latest such bore is Lawrence Krauss, of Arizona State University."
Pigliucci observes: "Here is another gem from this brilliant (as a physicist) moron: “Philosophy is a field that, unfortunately, reminds me of that old Woody Allen joke, ‘those that can’t do, teach, and those that can’t teach, teach gym.' And the worst part of philosophy is the philosophy of science; the only people, as far as I can tell, that read work by philosophers of science are other philosophers of science. It has no impact on physics what so ever. ... they have every right to feel threatened, because science progresses and philosophy doesn’t.”
Okay, to begin with, it is fair to point out that the only people who read works in theoretical physics are theoretical physicists, so by Krauss’ own reasoning both fields are largely irrelevant to everybody else (they aren’t, of course). Second, once again, the business of philosophy (of science, in particular) is not to solve scientific problems — we’ve got science for that (Julia and I explain what philosophers of science do here). To see how absurd Krauss’ complaint is just think of what it would sound like if he had said that historians of science haven’t solved a single puzzle in theoretical physics. That’s because historians do history, not science. When was the last time a theoretical physicist solved a problem in history, pray?"
Pigliucci's remarks are of common sense. In any person who is not affected by hidden irrationality factors would understand those points. But these points are clearly beyond Krauss' intellectual powers. He simply cannot grasp them.
In a postcript to his post, Pigliucci comments "As people have pointed out, Krauss has issued an apology of sorts, apparently forced by Dan Dennett. He still seems not to have learned much though. He confuses theology with philosophy (in part), keeps hammering at a single reviewer who apparently really annoyed him (in the New York Times), and more importantly just doesn't get the idea that philosophy of science is NOT in the business of answering scientific questions (we've got, ahem, science for that!). It aims, instead, at understanding how science works. Really, is that so difficult to understand, Prof. Krauss?"
I don't want to sound as a defender of Krauss, but to Pigliucci's question, I have to answer YES: It is very difficult (for Krauss) to understand that, because he suffers from Jime's Iron Law. What Pigliucci doesn't understand is that atheists affected by this law are intriniscally IMPAIRED to understand certain things (specially difficult and subtle concepts related to God or spirituality, and the concept of "nothing" is one of them because God is supposed to be creator of the universe from nothing... so the concept "creation of out nothing", implied by the absolute origin of the universe, is far beyond the intellectual reach of hard-core atheists. Jime's Iron Law forces them to misunderstand the concept of nothing in order to avoid the theologically charged concept of creation out of nothing).
Now, Pigliucci correctly complains that physicists in particular seems to be affected by the "nothing=something" confusion and ignorance of philosophy. Another philosopher, Edward Feser, also makes the same observation.
They're a right. But I think the imbecility of the "nothing is something" view is attached to more to the atheist's mindset than to a concrete discipline. The proof of this is that atheists who are NOT physicists also commit the same stupidity. Just consider zoologist Richard Dawkins and atheist writer John Loftus:
If the "nothing is something" confusion were induced by particular training in physics, we won't see non-physicists arguing like that (moreover, we would see these people REALIZING that what they're sayings is a straightforward imbecility whick makes them look like idiots and causes laughs in observers or readers).
Now, Jime's Iron Law can be seen not only in the "nothing is something" confusion, but in the "What caused God?" question too (or similar ones, like "God is not an explanation, because God himself remain unexplained", which is even more stupid than the "What caused God?" question). Dawkins is a leading exponent of this kind of first-rate stupidity:
Clearly, we're in presence of a phenomenon which goes beyond any field or discipline. It has to do with ATHEISTS as such.
Only people armed with Jime's Iron Law will understand (and predict) these things.
People like Krauss and Dawkins have destroyed their own intellectual credibility for ever.
